He Doesn't Do Hugs
by AlwaysPadfoot
Summary: An insight into the friendship between Teddy and Draco.


**He Doesn't Do Hugs**

**AlwaysPadfoot**

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**AN:** For the QLFC.

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**i. age five**

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Today we're going to aunty Narcissa's house for tea. Aunty Narcissa has a very big house, which is great to play hide and seek, except no one plays hide and seek with me.

When we get there, aunty has a visitor and he has bright blonde hair, like aunty, but more yellow. I think he might play hide and seek, but Gran would say I have to be polite so I will have to wait until the adults have stopped talking. Aunty says the man's name is Draco and he's my cousin.

The adults have coffee and I get blackcurrant squash. Aunty knows I like it more than orange squash so she keeps some specially in her cupboards just for me.

When Draco goes to the toilet, I wander off into the hallway and when he comes out I reach up and touch his arm.

"Will you play hide and seek with me, please?" I ask.

He thinks about it, because he goes quiet and Gran says when people are quiet they're thinking; she thinks a lot.

Draco makes a funny noise, looks behind him and then speaks. "One game."

I bounce up and down excitedly. "Can I hide?"

"Sure."

I run as fast I can up the stairs when he starts counting and go inside the nearest room. It's decorated green and I slide under the bed because I think I hear Draco's footsteps on the stairs.

I try and keep quiet because my breathing might give me away, but after what feels like forever someone comes in. I think they're Draco's shoes. He walks across to the cupboard and opens it. Then he checks behind the curtains, in the chest and in the bathroom before he walks into the middle of the room.

I cover my mouth because it's funny that he can't find me and I'm scared if I laugh he will. He walks towards the door and then stops before coming back towards the bed. I scramble backward, but he leans down and looks under the bed straight at me.

"Found you."

"Aw, no fair," I say. "You have to hide now."

"No, I said one game." Draco replies. "C'mon. Your Gran will wonder where you've gone."

* * *

**ii. age eight**

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"He refuses to change his hair back again. Everyone is more interested in Teddy being able to change his hair colour than my class." I hear Miss Grable say. "That's not it. I can deal with kids being unruly, but your grandson deliberately continued to disobey me after the incident."

I scowl at my feet, Miss Grable doesn't like me very much and I didn't disobey her, I just explained that she was wrong.

Gran was going to be angry at me for getting in trouble.

But I'm surprised, she doesn't say anything. She takes me home and someone is already in the house; Draco is there.

"Look, look, Draco my hair is like yours," I cry, forgetting all about how much trouble I'm probably in, before grabbing him around the middle in a tight hug.

He doesn't hug me back, but that's normal for Draco. He says he doesn't like kids or hugs, but I think he likes me. I see the picture I drew the other day of Draco and immediately go to grab it. When I turn around Draco and Gran are sharing a look, but I thrust the picture into his hands anyway. Draco stares at the picture for a short while before coming to a conclusion. "My eyes are a little big."

I scoff. "Eyes are hard."

Gran disappears from behind us and Draco attaches the photo back to the fridge. I feel as though I'm about to finally get the lecture Gran was going to give me before. I thought Draco was my friend, not someone who would tell me off.

"What did you do in your class, Teddy?" he asks.

"Nothing." I insist, looking away from him.

"When you look away I know you're lying to me."

"Am not!"

Draco sighs and glares at me with grey eyes. "When you look away when people are talking to you, then it's clear that you are lying. You can't lie to your family Teddy. You also can't be impolite to teachers, even if they are wrong or you think they're wrong then you should never correct them in front of other students. What you did in your class was rude and ill thought through."

I feel tears stinging the back of my eyes. "You don't know anything."

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**iii. age seventeen**

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Gran throws a great seventeenth birthday party for me during the easter holidays. All the cousins are back from Hogwarts and it feels as though there's a hundred people in the house - in fact I'm sure there is more than that.

Draco arrives exactly on time, Slytherin scarf draped around his neck and in his hand is a Lightning Bolt Broomstick. His wife, Astoria, and Scorpius disappear into the crowd of people and I go to give Draco a hug, which he tactically dodges.

"Is that for me?" I grin.

"Depends on whether you agree to never try hug me again."

I appear to think for a moment and then smile widely. "Done."

He hands over the broom and I have to stop myself from trying to hug him again. It's an amazing present, my old broom is starting to get sluggish.

"Thanks, Draco." I say.

"As long as you annihilate Gryffindor on it, I won't have to take it back."

"That I can do."

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**iv. age twenty**

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I end up at Malfoy Manor somehow. I know Scorpius will be at school and Astoria is working at St Mungo's so the only person there is going to be Draco. When he opens the door, it's like he knows what I'm going to say because his face gets all serious and glarey.

"You broke up," he says.

I nod and Draco steps aside to let me in.

Victoire and I technically broke up a month ago. She took a promotion in France; we said we'd make it work and then she rang with the news I'd been dreading: she was in love with someone else. It was one messy, sobbing break-up.

Draco pours me a fire-whisky from the cabinet his dad had once used and we sit in front of the fire in his study. He asks me what happened and I relay the whole story, piece by piece. I try not to cry - which is surprisingly hard - and I knew Draco probably knew that. I suspect that this conversation might have been easier with Uncle Harry, but Draco would give me the real advice, the serious advice quicker. After I finish explaining how sad and angry and more sad I am, he sits back in his chair and balances his glass on the armrest.

"I dated a girl after the war for about nine months, my father told me when I was younger that any girl your date for over four months should be the girl you are going to marry." Draco explains. "He was wrong about a lot of things, including that."

"Victoire and I were together for two years," I reply.

"It doesn't matter how long it is." Draco says. "The length of time doesn't define anything. You know how I look back at those nine months?"

I shake my head and swirl the remaining liquid in my glass around and around, before I look up at Draco. He meets my gaze and he pauses to think before answering. "I look at them and understand that not everything is perfect or what your parents or family tell you life will be as a kid."

Leaning back in my armchair, I sigh. "But why has it got to be like that?"

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**v. age twenty-eight**

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"What did I say to you eight years ago?"

I laugh. "I believe you said not everything is perfect."

Draco's eyes crinkle at the corner and he gives me that Malfoy smirk. I feel as though he was recalling something right there and then. "No, not everything. Just some things - this Teddy, is one of them."

We look across at Roxanne, who is dancing with her twin brother in the middle of the dance floor. She is beautiful and stunning and God I can't believe that it's taken this long for us to get married.

"This is definitely one of them," I murmur.

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**vi. age thirty**

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"Draco, meet your goddaughter," I smile, cradling my daughter in my arm. "This is Daisy. Daisy, this is your Godfather. He's pretty grumpy, and he doesn't like hugs, but he gives great advice. And he's going to hold you, right now."

I didn't give Draco a choice; I hand Daisy over to him and abandon him without saying another word. I retreat back to the other side of the room with Roxanne.

"What did he say?" she asks.

I smile, "I didn't give him a chance to say anything. If he looks like he might explode then I'll go over and give him a hand."

Roxanne snorts with laughter, "that's right, watch him suffer. If he drops her in shock I'm blaming you."

I watch him stare down at Daisy in shock before I see the corner of his lips twitch upwards and he smiles. He smiles wider than I've ever seen. Astoria clocks him from where she's stood talking to Hermione and she stares and then looks to me like I've just done something amazing.

My eyes draw back to Draco and I swear for a moment, I see his eyes glistening.

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**vii. age thirty-nine**

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I sit at the bedside for what seems like hours in a stunned silence. I refuse to leave because then it all becomes real. God. It had all just been so sudden, because only last week we'd been in London having our weekly meal between grandson and grandmother.

"Teddy?"

I feel Draco rest his hand on my shoulder and as soon as he touches me, my body begins to shake violently. All the emotion inside of me explodes and I crumple forward onto the blankets of the hospital bed.

"Why her? Why my Gran? She's practically my mum, she's been there all my life and now she's gone." I sob. "She was okay; she said she was okay. How did I not see that she wasn't?"

Draco didn't say anything at all, but after a few moments of me sobbing he put his arm around my shoulders. He pulls me into a hug and I didn't think of him as acting out of character, I just sob heavily into his shoulder.

"Did you know?" I croak, when I manage to get myself under control.

Draco shakes his head. "She didn't tell me, Teddy. She didn't tell anyone."

"This is my fault," I murmur, rubbing my eyes and looking down at Gran. "I should have visited more often or..."

Draco pushes me away to meet my eyes. "Teddy, this isn't your fault. Your Gran was sick and that will never be your fault. She loved you and she didn't want you to worry. I'm sorry Teddy."

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**viii. age fifty-seven**

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Draco stands solitary at the graveside as I approach him. This would be different to when Gran died; Draco dealt with things far differently. When Aunty Narcissa died he was solemn for weeks, but not incomplete. He looks broken. Astoria was his wife, they were so close. I stand beside him in silence and wait, because soon enough I'm sure he would start speaking.

But he didn't.

Draco walks away without a word, only to collapse ten metres away.

I spend three hours in the waiting room of St Mungo's with Scorpius, who looks as though his world is falling apart, and Albus, who never leaves Scorpius' side.

St Mungo's tell us it's a minor heart attack and that Draco is still out, but we were free to wait. I convince Albus to take Scorpius home and come back tomorrow. I send a quick message to Roxanne and then take up residence in the armchair in the corner of Draco's room. I'm paging through the Prophet when I hear Draco start speaking.

"Teddy?"

"Yeah, it's me, are you okay? Do you need me to get a healer?" I ask.

"No, I'm fine." He replies, "is Scorpius-?"

"I sent him home with Albus," I say. "He looked a little rattled. They'll be back in the morning."

Draco looks up at the ceiling. "Thanks Teddy."

I smile softly and sit up in my chair. "No problem."

* * *

**iv. age seventy-three**

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Draco Malfoy dies on the third of September 2071; he passes peacefully in his sleep. One of the house elves notifies Scorpius just after ten in the morning. It is too late to call a healer.

It isn't until I'm standing in my own lounge with Scorpius standing opposite me that I realise Draco was like a father to me. Of course, that isn't something you say to the son of a father figure three hours after he dies. I keep a brave face for Scorpius, who is distraught as he explains what has happened, and comfort him. Roxanne gives him a drink of tea and he stays a while, crying.

"I'm so sorry, Teddy," he says - for the fourth time - before he leaves.

When we're alone again, Roxanne immediately wraps her arms around me and I sit down on the sofa, stunned.

"Teddy, are you okay?" she asks.

"Draco was like my dad. Harry was like a cool uncle, but Draco was there all the time. He told me off when I screwed up; he gave me sensible advice; he helped me out when things went to shit." I reply, my voice wobbling. "No. No, I'm not okay."

She holds onto me tightly and for the first time for many years, I cry.


End file.
